New Countries and Changed City Names One thing now many of us realize is our world’s countries are dynamic. By that I mean many new ones have popped up in the last 50 years. Some of them were parts of other countries, some became independent and some just changed their names. I know I have a problem remembering some of the names because I knew the countries by different names in the past. Besides countries some cities have also changed names making things even more confusing for us old timers. One of the biggest catalysts for new countries was the breakup of the old Soviet Union. The republics became independent countries and not part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They were by alphabetical order Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. When these countries became part of the USSR some were already part of a federation. It was called the Transcaucasian Federation when it was taken over by the USSR it was divided into three republics which were Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. This happened in 1936. Today according to the most recent survey Russia has about 144 million people. Before the USSR breakup it had a population of 286,730,819. Another country that became divided into many other countries was Yugoslavia. Over a period of two years the following countries emerged from the dissolution, Croatia and Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro. These countries were formerly part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. They included Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro among other countries like Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, parts of Poland, Romania, Italy, Ukraine and Moldova. It is amazing how countries keep changing. The truth is nothing lasts forever even countries and their affiliations. There are even places operating as separate countries within countries. Inside of Moldova is a place named Transnistria which is backed by Russia and doesn’t respect the Moldovan laws. The proof of this is it has become a criminal state selling arms and taking part in human trafficking. Some say its nickname is the Mafia state. Even in the United States there are so called sanctuary cities which refuse to enforce the criminal laws of the nation. There is this idea which states there will be new countries in the next few years. It cites Catalonia in Spain will become a new country. There is a strong independence movement in that area and has been for years. Scotland has been trying for centuries to break away from the British Empire, but things may be a little easier for this to happen now that they have their own parliament. The Scottish people feel they are not being treated fairly by the English. Could this be the century they finally get their independence? I guess we will have to wait and see. The country of Belgium is considered a place where there could be a break off from the main body. When there are different languages spoken in different parts of the country this can lead to dissatisfaction and a desire for one part of a country which enjoys the same language to become its own country. Belgium has a Dutch speaking majority in Flanders and a French speaking majority in Wallonia and Brussels. The same is true for Canada which has a French language population in Montreal while the rest of the country speaks English. Canada has taken votes on Montreal breaking away and it has been defeated so far. Georgia is not a very big state, but inside in this country is even a smaller area known as South Ossetia. That area fought a military engagement with Georgia and lost. Russia fought Georgia and drove them out of South Ossetia and recognized its independence as they did with Abkhazia. All over the world countries are constantly changing and so are their loyalties. Sometimes it is due to pressure on a country by its neighbor to take over areas which that country believes is its own. Take Vietnam for example. Vietnam is currently in a disagreement with China over areas in the South China Sea and was even invaded by the Chinese army which claimed victory but in truth was beaten back and bloodied. This has caused Vietnam to move closer to the United States something which would have been unthinkable right after the Vietnam war with us. As a matter of fact, many nations in that area have moved closer to us. West Paupa is located on the western half of New Guinea and has been trying to break away from New Guinea for quite some time. A vote was taken and West Paupa became part of the Indonesian federal system. In the old days Rangoon was a very famous city. That name was changed to Yangon and it became the capital of Myanmar which was formerly known as Burma. This change is one of those that is hard to digest for people my age, probably because we heard so much about Burma from World War II. The name change never registered fully with me. One country which had a massive amount of name changes for its cities when they got independence from the British empire was India. I won’t go over them all and I realize most of the cities we are unfamiliar with here in the western world. Here are a couple, Shimla was renamed to Shyamala, Bhopal to Bhojpal and Aurangabad to Sambhaji Nagar. A more famous city was Bombay which is now known as Mumbai. Other countries which declared their independence were the Czech Republic, Eritrea, Germany, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Namibia, Palau, Slovakia and Yemen. Then there was East Timor, Kosovo and South Sudan. I can’t help but ask once we get into space in a big way and colonize planets and moons will the names be constantly changing? It seems to be human nature to want to either break away if there is a more of a commonality in an area than there is in the rest of the country. Maybe it is a lucky thing for us in the United States the way the states are set up. The blue states are on the two coasts basically with the red states in the middle making it much harder for anyone state to think about getting together to form a new country. We have had our share of name changes in the past for our cities and even some of our colonies but this seems to have settled down. This could change however because of the craziness going on now.
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